Monday, 28 November 2011

The evident pleasure Tina Turner and David Bowie take in each other’s performance was rumoured to have begun hours before they sang together on March 23rd 1985 during the English leg of her Private Dancer tour.Bowie was a surprise guest to duet with Turner at the NEC Arena, Birmingham on the song Tonight, which he had co-written with Iggy Pop.At around the 3:15 mark in the video clip below, amateur lip readers suggest Bowie whispers “My cock still hurts.” Whatever he does say as they slow-dance elicits a roar of laughter from Turner.Whether or not their tenderness is genuinely post-coital, their duet oozes sexiness –and manages to be meaningful and tuneful all at the same time.For all the raunch, naked flesh, and single entendres displayed by today’s music artists led by Rihanna & Co, they’re not close to the heat generated by Turner and Bowie what is now nearly 30 years ago.

4 comments:

There was definitely something going on there. I read Bowie's lips; it's a lot easier to read in better quality clips. She must've whispered something to him because when he first spins her around he says, "You do huh?" Look close and you can see her smile and say, "Yeah". He smiles and drawls, "Sweetheart...but my cock is still raw." I remember she said in an interview in 1985, "Do you know the story of my and David? He came with me to Birmingham and we sang 'Tonight'". Add to that the song he wrote for her (that ended up on her next album), entitled 'Girls', whose lyrics seem to come from the perspective of a woman who sings about the end of love and relationships; very sad and different from her usual style. He wrote that in 1986, a year after this.

I love this clip and wondered what Bowie was saying. After much study, I believe he greets Tina with a "Hello Baby, how are you?", to which Tina relies "Heeeyyy!" . Bowie is then seen uttering a indiscernible word or 2 as they dance. After that, Tina must have said something (when her face was not in view) to which Bowie replied "My cock is still raw", which makes Tina laugh uproariously.

Grapefruitcrazy

I’m not going into that good night – gentle or any other way – for as long as possible. Hence the launch of this blog in December 2009 a month before my 65th birthday.
Why the blog's name? When my doctor temporarily prescribed statins to reduce my cholesterol levels she told me to exclude grapefruit from my diet. I received the profoundest sense of my own mortality.
I’ve never liked grapefruit but now banned they called to me siren-like from supermarket shelves.
Forbidden grapefruit, it can only be a short step until my body was denied solid food and then oxygen itself.
Originally a cultural blog subtitled last stop before the abyss, after building a large archive, I re-launched in a new guise in March 2012 and again in April 2014.
My interests are widespread; by nature I prefer to look forward rather than back. I’m male; divorced with grownup children; a retired national newspaper journalist; and a Londoner. GC